Can I have a Redo?

The weather man called for temps in the 70's today. Quite possibly the last warm day of the year. Tomorrow is supposed to be miserable. So there couldn't be a better day for that very important porch project, right? Our porch has a slick coat of paint on it that makes it very difficult to stay on your feet when walking upon its surface. Feet tend to want to flip up in the air when they come into contact with our wet porch. Unfortunately, when the feet go in the air, the butt opts to occupy the surface formerly held by the feet. quickly. I'm terrified someone's going to get seriously hurt on our porch. Or worse, sue us. So earlier this year, we decided we'd put a coat of textured cement paint on the porch. Then we procrastinated. We forgot and forgot until we were down to what is possibly the last warm day of the year. Chris had computers waiting to be fixed, so he was off and running. I pulled out the beast of a power sprayer all by myself and set to work. Oops - I need to turn the water on. Oops - I need to clear the porch first. Oops - I need to get the dog off of the porch. Oops - I need safety-goggles. Oops - "Hon, how do you start this thing?!?" I tried and I tried and I could not get it started. Chris came home and started it. And fractured his elbow in the process. (okay, okay, I don't know that it's fractured, but I say it's fractured and he says it's just bruised, but if you so much as look at his elbow funny, he gets pale and sickly green. I'm looking for him to cave tomorrow and have a doctor tell him it's fractured.) So anyway, I power-washed the dirt and loose paint chips off the porch. Then the baby screamed and I had to go nurse her and calm her and couldn't get back out for another half hour. At which point, the beast wouldn't start back up. I called Chris again. He couldn't come home. I tried and I tried and tried to do it myself. I'm just too short-armed or short-bodied or wimpy or something. I climbed on top of the beast and jumped backwards off of it while pulling with both hands with all my might. I hated to give up, being (you guessed it) 'the last warm day of the year' and all, but it just wasn't possible. I went back out about every 15 minutes to try again and then sulked back into the house in frustration.

Eventually, Chris came home and we power-washed together and then we dried it. He ran to the store for our paint and I rigged up sheets to keep the leaves off the porch because the wind was really picking up. We couldn't have leaves landing in our wet paint, now could we? Boy, the wind was REALLY picking up. It ripped each sheet off several times before I could find a way to get them truly secured. As I sat down to admire my handiwork (and snap a picture of what looked like odd laundry on my porch) I noticed this:
As the porch dried further, the edges of missing paint were beginning to curl upwards. The whole porch wanted to start flaking! I called Chris and told him to abandon the mission. There was no need for paint today (the last warm day of the year.) We'll have to sandblast 2 layers of paint (I'm not sure it shows in the picture, but there's a dark grey under the cream) before we can put on our textured stuff.

ugh.

All that work for nothing.

Chris eventually went to work and I headed off to Wal-mart (yeah, like that will redeem a wasted day) to get stuff for lunch tomorrow. While there, I remembered the new picture that is sitting in my hallway. It needs hung (hanged?,) but with what? There's no guarantee that there's a stud in the spot I want to hang it. Wal-mart only had 50 different picture hanging options. Great. That's when I bumped into an old "Crush" from high school...who conveniently works with dry wall. Well! An expert! "Hey, Ty! You work with wall stuff! (wall stuff? oh, you sound like an idiot) Would you mind helping me with a picture hanging question?" He looked at me like I was an idiot. Imagine. So I rambled. "You do work with wall stuff..er, I mean...do walls (do walls? What is wrong with you?) ...don't you? 'Cuz I need to hang a picture and I've really not put many pictures up before because it's kind of a clutter thing and just looks cluttered - not that there's anything wrong with hanging pictures (shut. up. now.) but I found this one that I like but I don't know if there's a stud behind it." Can I further illustrate this story by pointing out that I was wearing my ratty jeans for hosing down a porch...oh, yeah...and I hosed down a PORCH so my jeans were WET and I was wearing my husband's sweatshirt and I hadn't washed my hair because I was gonna get so nasty with all that painting stuff.... ugh. Turns out Ty does do wall stuff and knew exactly what I needed to hang my picture. I thanked him and ran away quickly. Blushing furiously. I hate blushing.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am madly in love with my husband. (I mean, really, have you seen him? He is a stud!) I wasn't suffering from any old familiar flame feelings. Just humiliation. I'd have been just as humiliated if I'd run into well, anyone else and acted like an idiot. No, maybe not. Old crushes rate up there with old rivals, prom queens, most-likely-to-succeeds...you know what I'm sayin'.

I ended up wandering the store aimlesslyafter that, like a lost child. I couldn't remember what I was shopping for. Then I remembered: Velveeta. And that is just the straw that broke the camel's back. Because if you are ever able to list "Velveeta" as a GOAL, then it's just time to end it all. I cried.

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